This paper, drawing upon a recent study of youth post-compulsory educational and occupational decision-making, argues for a culturalist perspective to understand the persistence of class-based inequalities within VET. The paper begins by outlining two broadly distinct perspectives within current research into youth: an "individualist" approach influenced by the work of Ulrich Beck and a "culturalist" approach influenced by Pierre Bourdieu. Findings from the author's own study of a sample of AVCE students are then employed to interrogate the explanatory utility of these two perspectives. The students, working-class high achievers, exhibited a strong subjective sense of choice and individual responsibility combined with a tacit sense of class voiced in discourses that constructed a "practical" rather than "academic" self and which actively resisted the value of higher education. It is concluded from this that a Bourdieu-influenced culturalist methodology offers the greatest potential to understand how class-based educational identities may interrelate with apparently individualised identities.